The Cleveland Guardians made an addition to their roster ahead of their series with the Toronto Blue Jays.
The team claimed outfielder Ramon Laureano off of outright waivers from the Oakland Athletics. The A’s had designated Laureano for assignment a few days earlier.
Laureano was selected by the Houston Astros in the 16th round of the 2014 draft and was traded to Oakland a few years later in exchange for pitcher Brandon Bailey. Laureano made his big-league debut with the A’s in 2018 and posted an impressive .288 batting average and .853 OPS across his first two seasons in the league.
Things went downhill for Laureano after he was hit with an 80-game PED suspension during the 2021 season. He didn’t make his 2022 debut until over one month into the season because of the suspension and has put up a .212 batting average and .656 OPS since.
There was some thought that Laureano would be a nice fit for the Blue Jays. He’s a quality defensive outfielder with good speed and he’s a right-handed batter who hits left-handed pitching pretty well. But for all of those same reasons, a team lower than the Blue Jays in the standings put in a claim before they’d have been able to.
From Cleveland’s perspective, they’ll take any chance they can get at improving a struggling roster. The Guardians have gone 9-13 since the All-Star break and are now four-and-a-half games back of the Minnesota Twins in the Central Division. The team is averaging 4.08 runs per game, which is fourth-worst in Major League Baseball.

ARTICLE PRESENTED BY BETANO